1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to hair treatments, and more particularly, to a hair setting composition which shows an excellent set retention even under high humidity conditions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hair setting agents such as set lotions, hair sprays and the like are used to prevent the styled hair from getting out of shape owing to high humidity and wind. In known hair setting agents, there are used, as a fixing agent ensuring set retention, resinous components such as acrylic ester-methacrylic ester copolymers, polyvinylpyrrolidone-vinyl acetate copolymers and the like. However, it is known that these resinous components are hard to be washed away, so that they cannot be removed from hair completely even when the hair has been washed with shampoo. The components remaining on the surface of hair act to produce unfavorable phenomena such as an increase of a coefficient of friction of hair, occurrence of splits-ends or broken hairs by brushing, and lowering in texture of hair.
In order to overcome these drawbacks, there has been made an attempt in which nonionic surface active agents and/or wetting agents are added to the resinous components to increase the solubility in water. This method has, however, a vital drawback that though the detergency is improved, the set retention under high humidity is considerably lowered, impairing the inherent performance of the hair setting agent itself.
Accordingly, there is a demand of the development of a hair setting composition which can satisfy both requirements: (1) It shows an excellent set retention as to hold a hair style and (2) When hair is washed, the components are rapidly removed from hair.
On the other hand, keratin, which is a component such as of hair is made of epidermal cells, is a protein accumulated in the cells and is a compound in which cross-linkages are established between peptide chains by means of a multitude of disulfide bonds (--S--S). Attempts have been made to add the keratin or decomposition derivatives thereof to toiletries or cosmetics. However, the keratin itself is in the form of fibers, amorphus or a mixture thereof, and is insoluble in polar solvents such as water, alcohols and the like. Further, the decomposition derivatives obtained by reduction or oxidation of keratin are slightly soluble in polar solvents because of the presence of hydrogen bonds, ionic bonds and hydrophobic bonds between protein chains, so that only very dilute solutions are obtained, placing the limit on their applications.